Posts Tagged ‘calves’

When you think of calves, you picture the part of your leg that everyone else can see when you’re wearing shorts. Sure, you can have a huge upper body and quads, but if you have the calves of a 10 year old boy, then people may often chuckle.

Women prefer to have slim, shapely calves, and these exercises can help the females to accomplish their goals too. Ladies, don’t be afraid of training your calves just like men do… strong calves will even help you to walk better in high heels.

Of course, calf development is highly dependent upon your genetics. You can have very strong lifts, but the insertion points of the calf muscles are all that matters. Judges in bodybuilding competitions often do not put a lot of weight on the calves as a judging factor, but they do matter and are always good to have. And let me tell you, for those guys who think calves aren’t important on the beach, the women DO look and, yes, they DO judge you for it!

Never fear though, if you do not have aesthetically pleasing, low insertion points, you can still bring your calves up quite a bit.

How to Get Big Calves

As mentioned above, you can be as strong as possible on all of the main calf lifts, but it won’t mean jack if you do not have the low insertions. Sure, they may have size, but they may just not be as noticeable. Face it, some people will have great calves and some will not. You should definitely still train them despite your genetics. Arnold had pathetic calves, but as you can see, he brought them up through hard work and dedication. You can do it too.(more…)

How to do Box Jumps

Box jumps are a great exercise for your legs, and can be performed on just about any variable flat surface. They hit your posterior chain – calves, quads, glutes, and hamstrings – pretty hard.

Box jumps can be used for cardio workouts, neural activation training (NAT), high intensity resistance training (HIRT), and high intensity interval training (HIIT) circuits. They are often used in CrossFit WODs (Workout of the Day), and are a staple exercise in plyometric training. Plyometrics have a wide range of athletic and real sporting applications; they are used, for example, to increase jumping ability, leg strength, hip drive, and explosiveness.

Box jumps are a simple movement. They require you only to jump from one flat surface up onto another flat surface, then either step or jump back down, depending on the purpose of the exercise.

What if You Can’t Perform Box Jumps?

To excel at box jumps, you have to develop strength, flexibility, speed, power, coordination and balance. Without a basic foundation in these core exercise stills, you should not attempt a box jump, and whatever you do, don’t follow the box jump tips at eHow unless you never want to know how to do proper box jumps.

Be sure you are comfortable with bodyweight squats. If you can’t do bodyweight squats then you’ve got a real problem and should not be attempting box jumps.(more…)

Isn’t it obvious that we wouldn’t have to know how to recover from shin splints if we could avoid them in the first place? In order to understand how to avoid shin splints, we must first understand What Are Shin Splints. Then we can better understand how to proactively avoid them. We need to learn more about who gets shin splints, how to properly warm up and stretch the lower leg, and finally we need a method of strengthening those muscles. Assuming we can’t avoid shin splints, we will need to understand How to Treat Shin Splints.

Now, let’s examine the best ways to avoid shin splints by first understanding who is in danger of developing them.

Who Gets Shin Splints?

Athletes, weekend warriors, and even military recruits often experience shin splints, especially at the beginning of the season. Sometimes treatment can be as simple as changing to softer running surface or adding extra arch support to shoes to redistribute the stress. Active rest is often recommended by doctors as a primary treatment. This means that a runner should take up non-impact exercises such as swimming or biking, which gives the injured areas time to heal, but also maintains the cardiovascular benefits of exercise.

It is also believed that people with misalignment often develop problems such as shin splints. Misalignment to the knee, pelvis, ankle, neck, and spine, can result in abnormal posture and abnormal ROM at different joints, which causes excessive wear and tear on bones, joints, and muscles.

The calves are a serious problem area for most bodybuilders. You can win or lose a contest depending on whether or not you have put some time into building thick slabs of beef on the back of your legs. Women tend to have calf issues as well; many are sporting the dreaded “cankles”. Both sexes often suffer from skinny little twiggy leg syndrome, sometimes known as “bird legs”.

To build marvelous calves, you have to put time into training them frequently and from a variety of angles. First and foremost, you can’t make the following 6 calf training mistakes and also hope to build world-class wheels. Train your legs right and you will prosper. Make too many mistakes and they will continue to lag.

Double Your Calf Size with These Two Simple Tips

Calves tend to be a bodybuilding problem spot. Even Arnold used to worry about the size of his calves in relation to the rest of his body.

Here is a simple tip to double the size of your calves in no time:

Since your calves are made up of two muscle groups, you will need to train your calves in a standing and seated position. Most calf exercises can be tweaked to include straight-knee and bent-knee variations. Use them both.

Calves are a weak spot for most weightlifters and athletes. Your average male weightlifter doesn’t put the same effort into his legs as he does into his chest and biceps. Well I am here to tell you that it’s actually easy to develop some meaty ass calves as long as you’re doing your foundation exercises.

Calf Physiology

Bones and Joints

The lower leg is comprised of two long bones, the tibia and fibula. The tibia is the larger of the two and is located toward the middle of the lower leg. The fibula is the smaller bone and it is located on the outside of the lower leg.